2 weeks ago

2 weeks ago

2 weeks ago

Morning Five: 03.18.14 Edition

The coaching carousel has continued to turn with two spots opening up yesterday. The big opening was at Virginia Tech where they fired James Johnson after he won just 22 games in two seasons. Johnson was hired to replace current ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg after serving as an assistant under Greenberg. We will not try to make excuses for the Hokies’ performance under Johnson, but he was not helped by Dorian Finney-Smith and Montrezl Harrell leaving the school after Greenberg was fired. On a much smaller level, Southeastern Louisiana fired Jim Yarbrough after nine seasons in which Yarbrough went 133-135. Being two games under .500 might not be that bad, but most of Yarbrough’s success was early as he was over .500 in five of his first six seasons.

One of the interesting things with gambling scandals in sports is that they largely tend to be forgotten (Pete Rose being the obvious exception). This issue has made headlines recently at several schools where players may have been involved with point-shaving. The most famous case in college basketball history involved City College of New York between 1949 and 1951, but the one involving Boston College would probably be a close second. The Boston Globe has a phenomenal story on the background and aftermath of the scandal. The most amusing thing about this scandal was how poorly it worked for the people trying to fix the games.

Most of you are aware of how obsessed with basketball some members of Big Blue Nation are, but the level that some of them go to is beyond what you might imagine. To be fair this could happen with any fan group. Former Kentucky legend Rex Chapman recently told the story of one such fan, who befriended Chapman’s mother, and became friends with Chapman. This was fine until Chapman gave the fan his number and the fan has been harassing him ever since. The fan appears to be good-natured about it and is bugging Chapman the way that a teenage girl would probably bother Justin Bieber is they got his number, but Chapman has decided to put the fan “on blast” as a means to get him to stop. Somehow we don’t think it will work.

The Selection Committee may not put much value in Louisville, but Forbes certainly does. According to Forbes the Cardinals are the most valuable college basketball team at a valuation of $39.5 million. While the Cardinals being the most valuable team in the country might surprise some the others on the list are not a surprise (the Cardinals being on list is not a surprise just their place a top the list is). What we find more interesting is how far off the valuation is from that of pro sports teams and how close some coaching contracts come to the reported value of the teams (obviously we would need to discount the value of salaries for future years).

Indiana might not be a top-tier team this year, but don’t tell that to tell. After missing out on the NCAA and NIT Tournament, the Hoosiers were offered a spot in the CBI and not so politely declined the offer. Indiana’s AD issued a statement saying, “We’re Indiana. We don’t play in the CBI.” When programs pull power plays like this we often wonder about the repercussions including players having their career ending early and coaches missing out on bonuses. One interesting aspect of this decision was that it may have been influenced by Kentucky’s opening round NIT loss to Robert Morris last year.